With council’s final approval of the 2013 city budget looming Thursday night, London Mayor Joe Fontana didn’t sound like a politician determined to push through a third straight tax freeze.

The mayor struck a decidedly different tone than in his previous two budgets when, during an online town hall session Wednesday, he pulled his punch while discussing what had been his linchpin campaign promise — delivering four consecutive zeroes.

“I think we hit the right balance at 1.2%,” Fontana told viewers, referencing the tax hike Londoners would face if the budget isn’t adjusted during Thursday’s debate.

“Can we get to zero? We’re going to be discussing that at council perhaps,” adding there may be “further discussions as to how we might get closer.”

But one of his regular allies was more certain when asked if the tax freeze will be achieved.

“I don’t think so,” Coun. Bud Polhill said. “I think we might get to zero-point-something, but I always said from Day One that zero was a target but I wasn’t going to go to the wall for zero if it meant major cuts and major issues.

“Unless staff comes up with something that has major implications, I don’t see us getting to zero.”

To Polhill’s point, council has voted to reject several proposed cuts to such services as London Transit and the library. That would have cleared the path to zero but created significant controversy.

Instead, the temperature has remained surprisingly low and the process smooth since the 2013 budget was tabled in early December.

Council has yanked the reins on police and fire spending, forcing some belt-tightening on both amid widespread agreement the budgets for emergency services are unsustainable for London and other municipalities.

A 1.2% tax hike would add $30 to the property tax bill of the owner of an average London home, assessed at $202,000.

When Fontana campaigned in 2010 against incumbent mayor Anne Marie DeCicco-Best, he built his successful campaign on two promises: bringing 10,000 jobs to the city and delivering four straight tax freezes.